Installing plugins

Submitted by jtreadwell on Tue, 04/01/2014 - 9:57am

PowerSchool added the ability for us to give you customizations installed as plugins. This is great for CPM users as you can install and remove very easily. Previously CPM users could only remove a customization by deleting the files one by one. With plugins all the files installed with the plugin is removed if you delete the plugin making management a lot easier. But with this change comes some new directions. Since PDS is building all its new customizations as plugins we thought it appropriate to give you an easy place for directions.

I use custom/web_root for customizations. Can I install plugins?
Yes. You don't install them the way these directions are going to show you. Instead unzip the file and place the unzipped files in the custom/web_root just as you would any other customization. You can ignore the xml file as it's just for the plugin. The rest is exactly as it was before.

I use CPM but have never installed a plugin. What do I need to do?
Pearson has made this really easy. Note these directions will only work if your account has permissions to run them.

Click on System from the left menu

Click on System Settings from the center menu

Click on Plugin Management Configuration

Click Install

Click Choose File and navigate to where you downloaded the plugin

Click Install

Now your plugin is installed but not active. Click the empty checkbox next to the plugin you just installed.

Click yes from the popup.

This customization doesn't work for me/we don't need it anymore. How do I get rid of it?
The old method was to go in and remove each file one by one. This took a long time if you had a customization with a lot of files. But Pearson has made this really easy too. Note these directions will only work if your account has permissions to run them.

Click on System from the left menu

Click on System Settings from the center menu

Click on Plugin Management Configuration

Locate the plugin/customization you want to remove

If you only want to disable it then uncheck the box next to that customization. It will ask you if you're sure. This will disable the changes made by that plugin without removing the files. You can re-enable the plugin later by simply checking that box again.

If you want to remove it from your server completely then click on the delete button next to the plugin you want to get rid of. This will tell PowerSchool to go in and remove all the files associated with this plugin so they won't be in CPM anymore.

A new version of the plugin has been released. How do I update?
The old method was to simply re-upload. This was dangerous as it never looked to see if something was there and would overwrite all your stuff if you weren't careful. The plugin method is a few more steps but well worth it. Note these directions will only work if your account has permissions to run them.

Click on System from the left menu

Click on System Settings from the center menu

Click on Plugin Management Configuration

Locate the plugin/customization you want to update

Click on the delete button next to the plugin you want to get rid of. This will tell PowerSchool to go in and remove all the files associated with this plugin so they won't be in CPM anymore.

Click Install

Click Choose File and navigate to where you downloaded the new version of the plugin

Click Install

Now your plugin is installed but not active. Click the empty checkbox next to the plugin you just installed.

Click yes from the popup.

To find the official plugin management document log into PowerSource and it's located here

Is this post outdated? Did I miss a step? If so let me know and I'll try to update it when I can.

Jason,
I've got the latest CRB and all of the other plug-ins installed on our 7.11 Test server. We noticed that the much used Logs and Incidents reports are not there, and I couldn't find a plug-in for those yet.

Are you creating these or can I just modify the existing files, add them in through CPM, and then insert the links to these pages? (OR: Should I build it like the other plug in files and try to load them through the PlugIn Management?)

Of course we're doing training next week for a new district and don't have these needed reports! :)

I may be asking questions that have already been answered. I have tried to read everything...I'm just a little nervous about messing things up. We use the old CRB. I'm getting ready to install the new plug in. We have MANY of our own custom reports. If I delete the reportstab.html and install the plugin will all my own "custom" reports still be available to move to the new CRB folder from the old? Can I turn off the plugin and re-copy the reporttab.html back to the directory and the "old" crb will still work?

Just an update - I've installed the new plugins (including SQLREPORTS4) and all is well. I'm working on "moving" MY custom reports now. Thank you for this!

No, you don't need to delete all the old reports. That's the entire purpose of putting this in a new subfolder, so you only have to delete the reporttabs.html file that was customized by the old version.

Some things to check:
1. Do you have the base installed. If not then none of the other tabs will show.
2. If you only install the base no other tabs will show. You will need to install the plugins for the tabs you want.
3. If you imported as a plugin did you do it in the plugin manager or did you use the old customization import page (from the Localization screen)? If you used the old way that's not right.
4. Did you import the zip file in the plugin manager or the XML? Several people report that they imported the xml file. That is not correct, import the entire zip file. Plugins are zip files which contain all the other files they need.
5. Do you have CPM on? Installing as a plugin only works if you use CPM. If you don't use CPM then install into the custom/web_root folder instead.
6. If you are using CPM and have deleted the old reporttabs.html file check the system reports page to see if the custom dashboards tab shows. If it does you likely have a custom version of that reporttabs.html file in your custom/web_root.

I'm completely new to this. I read the step by steps and cannot figure out how or where to get the CRB base plugin. I have installed the other plugins but I understand they will not work with out the base. Help please.

The Nurse tab appeared when I downloaded that plug-in but it is not appearing for the Misc Reports. We are on Version 8 and I installed it on a Mac then deleted it and installed it on a windows machine and it still isn't appearing.

We are trying to install the plug-in "Scores Page Standards with Weighting" and are getting an error: Plugin file contains an unrecognized file: guardian/scores.html. I am importing the .zip file and cannot find any more info on this error.

I have all the plugins installed and checked marked but when clicking on the Custom Reports Tab I'm receiving the error 404. I had the original bundle installed and I deleted all the old files, did I delete something I shouldn't of? Previously used web-root now using CPM

I have all the new CRB plugins installed and all the tabs show up but Transportation. Looking at the tabs I noticed not all the reports that are in the CRB say under "grading" are not there". I moved over to CPM during our fall break. I removed all the old files from the webroot before installing the plugins. Our administrations are just now noticing reports are missing. Any help would be greatly appreciated.

I was able to successfully load the new CRB into 8.0. However when I load the new EPP (4.0), parents do not see a link for any of the customized pages (eg., honor roll). The page is there; they can navigate to the URL for honor roll, but there is no link on the parent's left navigation even though I have removed the checkmark on the Admin/SchoolSetup/Portals page. We are not using CPM; everything is done through custom webroot. I tried it with and without the plugin. Does the plugin have to be installed before or after a particular page?

I'm relatively new to PowerSchool and plugins. The following clarifications would help make installation even easier.
1. When you say, "Click Choose File and navigate to where you downloaded the plugin" specify to select the ZIP file. I incorrectly assumed I should unzip the file and tried installing the xml, which the server says it installs OK, but obviously that doesn't do the trick.
2. Spell out how to enable/disable plugin options by going to Setup/[school|district] - Parent Portal Settings.
Sorry if I missed these, or if they ought to be painfully obvious. I just missed it as a new guy.

I am trying to clean up some areas of custom powerschool. I have some old customizations which are actually worse than the new powerschool pages that they replace. One area I'm cleaning up is the custom report bundle. I had the old version before plugins. I installed the plugin version and like it. When I disable the plugins, however, it reverts back to the old custom report tabs. Can I get a list of these old files which can be deleted from my custom folder. I would like it so that when I disable the plugins, there are no custom reports available.

I installed Custom Report Bundle 3.4.2 a couple of years ago through CPM before the ability to load as a PlugIn. I also have installed PowerTools and SQl 4 reports. I want to remove the old Custom Report Bundle and install the newest through Plugin, If I install the new through PlugIn - will it overwrite all the correct files. Do you have instructions with step by step processes and/or a specific list of files that need to be removed before I add CPM through Plugin?

I tried to install the custom report bundle base this is the message I got (Plugin file contains a file that already exists: web_root/images/busy_blue.gif). I know that the person before me installed a bundle a while ago. I tried to locate the file to delete it but I do not see a file to delete so I can update the bundle.

OKay folks felling pretty stupid right now. I just installed the EPP customization, enabled it, but can't find the Admin page for it. I looked through the documentation to find clues where I should be looking, found nothing. Either its not there or I need to buy a white cane.

If you have those custom pages already installed, you have to delete them before installing the plugin. The plugin system seems like it won't overwrite any previous custom pages of the same name, I guess to prevent it from accidentally overwriting anything. My guess - you had the old EPP pages installed that were "stand-alone" before they made this a plugin?

Suggestion - before installing any custom anything, I always do an export of my custom pages and save the zip file with the date. That way if I DO screw anything up or want to know what was different, I can easily reference the old copy. In your case, it may help you figure out where your custom pages are to delete.

I installed the base and reports. When I click on the custom reports tab the reports do not load and I get an alert that states: Failed to retrieve report list. Response Status: parserror.
When I click rescan the reports they show up. Also I have the tabs for each of the different type of reports but you can't read the titles on the tab.
Any help would be appreciated.

I've had to start from scratch since we moved to being hosted. I've installed the plugin for the base and the grades but I still don't have a tab for Custom Reports. Do I have to upload all the custom folders also?

I have installed these plug ins for our school and was trying to install them for one of our sending schools in which I have Admin privileges. I installed the base bundle and all the other ones and the Custom Reports tab doesn't show. What do I have to do to get the Custom Reports tab to show in PowerSchool??

Hi. We have an old version of PDS on our server, but I just downloaded and installed (successfully, it seems) the bundle plugin and the new schedule plugin; however, I don't see the new schedule reports. Help! (And THANKS!)

I'm starting to get a handle on plugins and from what I understand of the above, when updating I would delete and reinstall the plugin for updates. From a quick test, deleting the plugin will remove all pages, regardless if I customized it further.
So for instance, I edit the honor roll report to take into account the different honor roll titles we use. I don't want to have to remember to edit that page every time I go to update the report bundle. How would you recommend going about preserving my changes?
All I can think of is to make a new page with my changes, then make a page fragment with jquery to edit your href link to my page. Or would there be a better way?